


Unwanted

by Owlix



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: C-PTSD, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Masochism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, bad behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 06:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4468379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max wants things he shouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwanted

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some ambiguous future MTMTE when Fort Max gets reunited with the Lost Light. Please heed the tags on this one.

The desire for it built in him, ugly and unwanted until it scraped at the inside of his frame. Until he wanted to purge, but purging his tanks wouldn’t drive it out. Neither would clawing at his own plating until the metal shaved off under his fingertips, long thin curls of paint and finish. Max did it anyway, trying at least take the edge off.

Fort Max wanted to feel force - to be handled rough and careless, to feel big hands pushing and pulling him. To feel himself moved, yanked by his external plating. His armor crawled with an absence of touch, with desperate desire for pressure.

He wanted to fight - hand to hand, up close and personal. He wanted to fight, and he wanted to _lose_ , with everything that meant.

It was a need he couldn’t fill. The number of mechs on board big enough to manhandle him the way he wanted was few enough, and out of those, none would be willing even under the best circumstances. Even if he asked.

And Max couldn’t ask, because everyone knew what had been done to him. Everyone would know what he was asking for and why he needed it. They already knew that he was fragged up. They’d already concluded that he was damaged beyond repair. He couldn’t make that _worse_.

And so he held it in.

 

He talked about it with Rung.

Rung had told him that his feelings were normal - common, even, after years of prolonged torture and captivity.

Rung had assured him that these desires didn’t make him “sick” or “bad”  - these desires that Max had never had before, things he didn’t _want_ to want. Rung had assured him that they could work through it - that together they could minimize these feelings, if that was what Max preferred, or that they could work to make Max comfortable with them, to help him satisfy them while preserving his physical and emotional safety.

But then Max had left the Lost Light, and his sessions with Rung had turned brief and infrequent and always long-distance. Max didn’t get worse, but he stopped getting better. And Max was left alone, clawing at his own plating, throwing his own body against the wall as hard as he could manage while minimizing the noise.

He wanted. Sometimes, when things got bad, he wanted with a desperation that was difficult to contain. But even if he had the courage, there was no one to ask.

 

When the Lost Light returned, and _he_ walked out of the crowd, Max stared despite himself.

Max had been warned, of course. But no warning prepared him for Megatron, larger than life, cool red optics and calm, collected posture and bright, new badge on his chest, walking through the assembled crew like he had every right to be there and taking his place at the front.

Max had never seen him before - not in person, in bold and brilliant clarity, not like _this_. He’d seen him at Simanzi, briefly and distant, through smoke and shrapnel. He’d seen him on holovids during mission briefings, seen him portrayed as monstrous and huge on Autobot propaganda posters. But this - this was surreal.

“So,” Max said, when they had a quiet moment. “You’re _him_.”

Megatron thought he understood what that meant, but he didn’t. Max wasn’t about to explain - to tell him how many times he’d heard Overlord speak Megatron’s name, in long rants or heated moments. How many times that name had been aimed at _Max_ , roughly the same shape and size, a poor temporary replacement for the real thing.

The things that Overlord had said, the way that Overlord had spoke about him... well. Megatron loomed godlike in Overlord’s worldview. There was no way the mech could live up to the hype.

He was big, though. Not as big as Overlord, but big enough. Max was aware of Megatron’s special “medical” diet, designed to keep him feeble and under control, but nothing about the way Megatron stood or moved spoke of weakness. He seemed confident and strong, a steady immovable object. His hands were big and broad; Max caught himself staring at them.

“I am,” Megatron said, as if unsure how else to respond.

“I expected more.” Max’s words had less impact than he’d hoped. He let the words hang there for a moment between them before walking away.

 

 _It was your fault_ , Max wanted to say. _It was you he wanted, all along. I was just a pawn, a tool, a toy. A poor replacement. You were the one he really wanted. He hurt me all that time to get to you. And you didn’t even come. You didn’t even_ notice _._

 _You made him. He may be - may have been - a monster, but_ you made him. _You made him, and_ he told me how.

Max didn’t tell Megatron any of that. Max didn’t tell him anything at all.

But he remembered the size of Megatron’s hands and the steady strength of his frame.

 

“They told me,” Megatron said later.

Max didn’t have to ask what he meant. He wished the crew had kept their fragging mouths shut, but there was no keeping this secret. He pretended that it didn’t really matter.

“Three years,” Megatron said. “I--”

Not an apology. If he - if _Megatron_ had the gall to offer Max an _apology_ Max would hit him, and if he hit him he wouldn’t _stop_ hitting him and --

“I know what he’s capable of,” Megatron finished, voice barely audible through the rushing roar in Max’s audios.

Max was disgusted at the sheer scale of his own relief. He was disgusted by Megatron’s words, too. So disgusted that he choked, unable to speak at all.

Megatron didn’t speak either. He seemed to be struggling - some internal turmoil that just made Max angrier. Max _hated_ Megatron, with a sudden and personal passion that felt very different than it had during the years of war.

He wondered with dizzying abruptness how much of that hatred was his own and how much of it had come from Overlord, second-hand emotion lodged in his spark chamber like so much else and left to rot there.

Max shut his optics off, trying to regain his bearings. When he reactivated them again, Megatron had gone. Max realized his hands were clenched into fists. He inhaled slow and exhaled slower and relaxed his fingers the way Rung had taught him, trying not to remember what had happened the last time he’d been on the Lost Light and felt the overwhelming need to do damage.

 

Familiar places meant old, bad habits. Max found himself at Swerve’s, drunk and surrounded by people who weren’t his friends. People who smiled to his face but whispered behind his back.

Rung was there too, on the far side of the bar, sitting with Skids and a handsome mech with a nautical alt that Max didn’t recognize. Rung sent Max a long, steady look across the bar. Max turned his face away and stared into his drink.

He knew that it was stupid, what he was doing. But it was comforting to keep an eye on the crew. And the engex felt good. It took the edge off. Max didn’t let himself drink alone - he knew what that behavior would imply - but he could drink here, in a bar with company like a normal mech. Here, Max could pretend it was socialization and not self-medication.

So he ignored Rung’s worried, disapproving glare. He drank. Some part of him half-wished that his therapist would intervene, come over here and shout at him and drag him out of the bar.

But when he looked up again, Rung and his companions were gone.

Max drank, and kept drinking. Something about the crowd shifted, or something in his neural net did. Suddenly Max was being observed and not observing - surrounded by ominous noise and laughter that was probably aimed at him and innumerable potential threats, and all those mechs who weren’t his friends looked like potential enemies.

Max chugged the last of his drink, left a handful of shanix on the bar, and left without saying goodbye.

He came across Megatron in the hallway.

Off-duty, it seemed, and probably heading towards his hab-suite. Max had asked around and found that Megatron did very little socializing, spending most of his off-shifts isolated in his room doing Primus-knew-what.

Megatron paused to look Max up and down. Max took the opportunity to do the same. He took stock of Megatron’s big broad hands and thick chassis, his face at Max’s optic-level, his engine rumbling at Max’s own resonance.

“I want to fight you,” Max said abruptly, engex letting the words slip past his lips.

Megatron’s expression didn’t change. “Everyone on this ship wants to fight me.” He made a face, attempting to adjust to words he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “I’d... prefer not to.”

“No, you don’t understand. I--” Why had Max drank so much? He wasn’t wasted, but his processor was having difficulty finding the right words. And it was important to find them. He had to make some kind of sense. “I want to _spar_.”

Megatron’s expression remained unaltered. “You want to hurt me while you think you have some kind of advantage.” He exhaled hot air. “Again: You and everyone else on this ship.”

“That isn’t it at all.” Max grabbed him by the front of his chestplate. Megatron didn’t resist or fight back, just stood there, infuriatingly still and utterly unmoved. “Listen. _You owe me_.”

Megatron’s red optics narrowed faintly. “You’ll have to get in line.”

He glanced up and down the corridor -- a prisoner cornered by a warden searching hopefully for witnesses or cameras and finding none. Then he seemed to catch the scent of engex on Max’s breath and wrinkled up his nose in apparent distaste. His expression darkened.

“You’re the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord,” Megatron said, “and you’ve been drinking. I’m a prisoner of the Autobot state. This entire conversation is a bad idea.”

“No, _listen_. You don’t understand. I--”

Megatron stepped back so abruptly that Max lost his grip on his chestplate. Out-maneuvered, not over-powered.

“Hey! Hey, come back!”

Megatron didn’t spare him a backwards glance.

 

Max sat alone in his temporary hab suite on the ship, watching archival holovids of Megatron’s pit fights from before the war. They were publicly available on the ship’s shared archive. A piece of history. There was nothing strange about watching them. The prickling discomfort Max felt about it was purely irrational.

Overlord had waxed almost poetic about Megatron’s performances in the pits. Talking for hours to his own personal captive audience, recounting specific moments of specific fights as if he’d just walked out of the stadium. He’d been forged a green-sparked triple-changer before the war, a form and function that guaranteed him a position in the military doing work that suited him, starting one step well above the rank-and-file. What had drawn Overlord to the ‘cons had never been the politics. No, it had been this mech here, with his miner’s frame still decked out in caution tape. It had been Megatron, and the bloody brilliant swath he’d carved through the pits.

On the holovid, Megatron fought like he’d been built for it. Something about the way he moved - something about the way his hands clenched, the way he threw other mechs’ weight around - was uncomfortably familiar. Something about it dragged at Max’s attention and held it.

The camera went abruptly black, censoring the killing blow - an Autobot modesty that struck Max as faintly ridiculous in the face of what he’d seen during the war. The audio track remained clear. Max shut his optics off and listened: the roar of the crowd in fever-pitch, a wet rip and pop, the distinctive electric crackle of a spark being snuffed out by hand.

Max queued up the next fight, and the next.

 

When Max found Megatron in the hallways a second time, it was intentional.

“Look, what do you _want_?” Max asked him, finished with any pretense of subtlety.

Megatron met his gaze for a long moment, expression flat. “Nothing that you can give me.”

It was a lie - an attempt to start the negotiation from a position of strength. Max had played this game countless times on G-9.

“Energon?” Max offered. “ _Real_ energon I mean, not that poison they’re restricting you to.”

Megatron’s optics narrowed almost unnoticeably, but they also brightened. In interest?

“I can give you some of mine,” Max said, attempting to sweeten the deal. “High-octane. Mixed for a tank. Perfect for your frame.” No change in Megatron’s expression. Max subtly changed tack. “Or engex, if you want it. Something from Swerve’s stash. He keeps the good stuff in the back, under the bar. I can--”

But Megatron’s expression was growing distant and increasingly disinterested; Max was losing him.

“No, wait. Listen. Just tell me what you want. Give me something to work with here. Books? Luna 2’s library is filled with books I’ve never seen anywhere else. Hundreds of them. Shore leave? I can talk to Rodimus and--”

“What is this about?”

Megatron’s voice silenced him, somehow. Max had heard recordings of his speeches, but they hadn’t prepared them for the way it felt in person, for the intensity of those red optics and the deep resonance of that voice and the sureness with which he spoke.

“I--” Max was abruptly, hopelessly transparent under Megatron’s gaze, opened up and laid bare. A feeling both familiar and terrible. His vocalizer stalled.  “I want to fight you.”

“If you just wanted to beat me, you could’ve jumped me in the hall. You wouldn’t be the first Autobot to try it. Why haven’t you?” Megatron’s voice was steady and even, faintly curious but otherwise unconcerned. “You can’t want a fair fight. You know what they’ve been feeding me. So what _do_ you want?”

While Max struggled to answer, Megatron seemed to come to some abrupt conclusion.

“Verify it with my” -- he sneered, upper lip curling -- “ _co_ -captain. Forward his approval to my second-in-command. Once I verify that he’s received it, I’ll give you your fight.” Megatron turned to leave. “Whatever it is you want out of this, I hope you get it.”

 

Getting Rodimus’ approval was easy. Rodimus laughed as he signed the form, relentlessly pressing Max for “embarrassing photos” of his co-captain “after you kick his sorry aft.” Max muttered without actually agreeing - he didn’t want anyone to see this who didn’t have to.

Getting approval from Ultra Magnus was marginally more difficult. He protested at first, and made a brief com-call to Megatron to verify his willing participation. When both captains pulled rank, Ultra Magnus frowned and signed the form, noting his objections in small, perfectly-handwritten letters on the side.

Max forwarded the form to Megatron immediately upon receipt. A very long moment later, he got a reply - a time, and a place.

 

 

Max waited alone in the practice room, nervous and hating himself for it.

There was nothing to be nervous about here. _Nothing_. His life wasn’t at risk. Megatron was drugged - he didn’t _scare_ him. He'd survived G-9. He'd survived the aftermath. He shouldn't be afraid of a sparring session, not even one with the Slagmaker.

But Max paced back and forth, quick tightly-measured steps and precise turns in a space the size of a cell, and he flinched when the automatic doors hissed open.

Megatron walked into the practice room with that Decepticon cat trailing at his heels.

“No,” Max said, pointing. “ _Not him_. Just the two of us.”

“Ravage won’t interfere.” Megatron’s voice demanded attention, and once Max really _looked_ at him he had a hard time turning away.

“No,” Max said again, meeting Megatron’s gaze with effort and holding it. “I don’t want him watching.”

Megatron exhaled and nodded. Max didn’t see the cat leave, but when he looked for him he couldn’t find him. He glanced behind himself, checking all four corners of the practice room. It was empty save him and Megatron. Time to start, then.

“No guns,” Max said. “Considering they took yours and all. Hand to hand. We stop if either of us takes serious damage. All right?”

Megatron nodded and rushed him.

Max had a flash of the old Megatron from the holovids - filthy and glowing with spilled energon, moving faster than a miner’s frame should have allowed - and then Megatron’s weigh hit him hard enough to shake him to his protoform. Heavy and dense and driven, tank engine rumbling, exhaust clouding Max’s intakes. The way his hands held and ripped at Max’s plates felt familiar. Terribly, satisfyingly familiar. This. Yes, _this_ was what Max wanted.

Max pushed just to feel Megatron push back. Megatron shifted his weight and _threw_ him - out-maneuvering him rather than overpowering. Max went down heavy with Megatron’s weight - still solid despite his internal damage and intentional poisoning - pinning him to the floor, just barely on the edge of a pleasant and familiar pain. Max’s optics flickered as he waited, anticipation making his spark whirl, and…

The weight lifted. After a moment, Max looked up. Megatron was watching him, red optics unnervingly astute. Red as Max’s own.

Overlord had always been fond of Max’s optics, before he'd-- “Fetching,” he’d called them. “Such a pretty shade of red.” Max wondered if this resemblance was why. It was an uncomfortable thought. Max shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to force himself back to the here and now.

Megatron was still staring - picking him apart, pulling him open. It made Max’s plating prickle. It wasn’t what he wanted out of this. Not at all. He didn’t want to be seen, he just wanted to be _hit_.

Max took a stance and nodded his readiness.

Megatron hit him hard enough to make him bleed. Max let his face turn with the blow to hide his expression. When Megatron came in close again to grapple Max let him.

They went down again. Megatron’s hands were huge, and he was strong enough to push Max to the ground with shuddering force, strong enough to hold him there. Max leaned into the abuse, optics offline, engine humming satisfaction as one of Megatron’s big hands pulled back to hit him as the other held him still.

The blow didn’t come. The grip on his chestplate loosened. Megatron’s heat and the rich press of his electromagnetic field pulled abruptly away.

Megatron stood. Max heard him take a step back.

“You’re throwing this.”

Max struggled to his feet and forced his optics online again. His head spun - from the force of the blow, from the force of being there and then again, tasting his own fuel and feeling the echoes of force shuddering through his frame. From having all of that and then abruptly losing it.

“I’m not--”

“You are.” Megatron looked faintly disgusted. “I’ll ask you again. What is it that you _want_?”

“I--”

Megatron waited. Max couldn’t answer.

When Megatron rushed him again, Max put up a fight - a real one. Somehow, Megatron outmaneuvered him despite his best efforts, hand gripping Max's chest and pushing his back into the wall. Giving Max exactly what he wanted once again. Max leaned into it against his will, frame going lax, ashamed but unable to resist the pull.

Megatron was close enough that Max could smell him, close enough that Max was drowning in the texture of that overwhelming electromagnetic field.

“I don’t know if this is some kind of trap, or...” Megatron wrinkled his nose in apparent distaste as he let Max go and stepped out of reach. “Or something else entirely. Regardless - we’re finished here.”

“No, wait. I-- Wait! I’ll--”

“Whatever it is you want,” Megatron said, optics narrow, “come back when you’re ready to ask for it properly.”

Megatron turned to leave. That cat appeared from somewhere in the room and followed him, glancing back at Max with scornful red optics. The doors hissed shut, and Max was left alone.

Max’s legs shook. He let himself slump to the floor and leaned against the wall, fingertips digging into the dents in his plating until it hurt, and shut his optics.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you monkeysocks, Martin Iceworth, and Bibliotecaria_D for advice on this one.


End file.
